Great news: ObamaCare’s enrollment numbers are only about 33 percent bogus

Human Events ^ | 05/01/2014 | John Hayward

[kcvl]

No serious analyst believes the ObamaCare “signup” totals pushed by the White House are accurate. The media makes a pretense of relaying these numbers as though they were valid data, when every single reporter knows they are not. In this way, talking-point energy is generated; there’s lots of chatter about 7 million “signups” on April 1, or 8 million today, or whatever figure the Administration is pushing out, but the caveats are muttered in a very low voice… usually as a single sentence about how the Administration refuses to release the total of paid and valid ObamaCare policies sold, or their demographic breakdown. Video news reports frequently forget to mention these qualifications at all. Print reporters usually claim the total of paid policies is “unknown,” even though everyone knows the Department of Health and Human Services has the number. If it was good news, they would of course release it immediately.

Thanks to work by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, we have a better idea of why the Most Transparent Administration in History is guarding those figures as closely as Barack Obama’s activities on the night of September 11, 2012. Previous estimates from the insurance industry held that 20 to 25 percent of the reported ObamaCare signups were unpaid and invalid, but the actual numbers from the federal exchange system turn out to be considerably worse:

[kcvl]

Data provided to the committee by every insurance provider in the health care law’s Federally Facilitated Marketplace (FFM) shows that, as of April 15, 2014, only 67 percent of individuals and families that had selected a health plan in the federally facilitated marketplace had paid their first month’s premium and therefore completed the enrollment process. Nationwide, only 25 percent of paid enrollees are ages 18 to 34. The Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations today invited the leaders of some of the nation’s largest insurance providers and their trade groups to testify at a hearing, “PPACA Enrollment and the Insurance Industry,” on Wednesday, May 7, 2014, at 10:15 a.m. in room 2123 Rayburn House Office Building.

[rarestia]

Assuming 8 million is the number of sign ups on the site, then there are 5.36 million paid enrollees with 1.34 million between the ages of 18 to 34. Those are some pretty abysmal numbers.

[Gaffer]

The media makes a pretense of relaying these numbers as though they were valid data, when every single reporter knows they are not.

And they do this why? As far as I'm concerned, a 'journalist' is nothing more than a subversive terrorist who has found out it is an easy living without much real work. How much work is it to take a talking points fax off the machine each morning and feed it to their teleprompter, word smith it into their commentaries, etc.?

Scumbags, who in a better world would be relegated to shoveling real sh!t in a sewage processing plant

[kcvl]

And that is before we learn how many actually PAID!

[IamConservative]

No serious analyst believes the ObamaCare “signup” totals pushed by the White House are accurate.

Pretty sad when the media both expect and accept the White House is lying to them. Be a lot easier if they just said they were worthless purveyors of bull squeeze. The explanation doesn't make it otherwise.

[molson209]

33 percent bogus ,about standard for everything Obama Admin does

[rarestia]

According to the article, the 67% is how many have paid. So 33% of their numbers are bogus. The more troubling figure is that fewer than 1.5 million are under the age of 35.

[GOPJ]

I could sell dog poop by mail if the government was willing to fine people who wouldn't buy the dog poop... And if I had an IRS willing to go in and collect those fines....

I'm amazed the numbers are so low... seems the people really hate this horror...

[uncitizen]

So basically, the admins number are 100% bogus...I knew that already. Didn’t need another article to say so.

[Fido969]

You can also expect that the number of paying members will decrease as time goes on.

[what's up]

This is why Queen Kathleen is refusing to appear before Congress again.

She knows she can't lie anymore about having no clue how many haven't paid. Either the victorious claims about 7.5 million will have to come crashing down or she'll have to perjure herself.

[harpu]

Don’t forget to add in (or out) the enrollees who had to be subsidized, and for how much WE had to pay to give them insurance!